Some observations

I'm always forgetting to include things on my blog, so here's a list of the things I keep forgetting:

You can buy anything you want from the top of a woman or child's head - boiled eggs, handkerchiefs, pineapples, peeled oranges, kebabs, popcorn, sachet water, PK, Mentos, plantain chips, frozen (or not so frozen) milk! Most women carry everything in this way. I even saw one walking along with a gas bottle on her head!

Some trotros play music, while others don't. I like the ones that do! Usually it's just the radio, which means fuzzy reggae or hiplife, but sometimes they'll be playing their own tapes. One was playing Justin Timberlake and Beyonce!! Ahhh...

There hasn't been enough rain here lately, which means the dam hasn't got enough water going through it. Ghana powers not only its own country, but also its neighbouring countries, which means that sometimes we have to make sacrifices - every 5 days the electricity will go off from 6pm til 6am the next morning to save electricity. Man it's hot trying to sleep on those days! Sarah says that the other countries always have electricity, so she finds it really annoying that we have to give it up. Last night it was off so I went to bed at about 7, bored. It's almost Ghana's 50th anniversary of independence, so now it won't go off until the 14th March. So good!

Every morning, Tiko washes his car at about 5am! Everyone wakes up early here. It's also really dirty, which is why everyone's always washing their cars. I get woken at about 5:40 every morning by the family giving their morning devotion. It's about 5 minutes of singing then praying. One morning I had just started brushing my teeth in the basin in the hallway, when they started doing it! I had to stand there for the whole thing and I felt terrible haha.

There's an awesome place in Osu called Smoothy's which makes amazing smoothies!!! I've been there twice now. They cost 25000cedis (about $3.40), they're made with soya milk and you can choose any wacky combo of fruits and juices that you want - my personal favourite is peach, banana and mixed berry! You can also choose whack things like peanut butter, avocado or coconut, but I'm not sure. Maybe next time.

Ghana is changing its currency in July so that 10000cedis will now become 1cedi. I think it would make more sense to change 1000cedis to 1, because there are SO many things that are worth less than 10000, but that's the way it goes. I think it will make lots of the prices rise as well. The smallest coin they will have will be 5pesewes (currently 500 cedis), and water currently costs only 300cedis!!

Anyway, my point about the changing currency was that there's this HILARIOUS ad on tv about it! There's this wicked song all about the change of currency, explaining the changes and giving examples and it says 'there is no change in value, the value is the saaaaaaame!' Every time I hear it I crack up laughing. It has school children singing, women and men in traditional West African dress dancing, and it's great!

If I remember anything else, I'll let you know :)

1. A woman selling pegs at Kaneshie Market
2. This woman is carrying her suitcase on her head, and in her left hand is a live chicken that was still squarking as she walked along!
3. My family on a lights out night. The generator wouldn't work for some reason so everyone was trying to fix it in candlelight
4. Inside a trotro - down the bottom is one of the seats that fold down. These seats trap everyone in, meaning that when someone wants to get out, everyone plays musical chairs and shuffles around.